The present invention relates to a novel rope climber, particularly to a rope climber adapted to be hanged fastenedly on a cable, a rope or a long pole suspending from a high place whereby a person is able to climb up and down by the cable, rope or the pole by operating the climber in an alternating manner with hands and feet and to stay at any position on the cable, rope or the pole .
Till now, when mankind use a rope for climbing up to a high altitude or for descending they have only to rely on strong physical strength and the manner of using both hands and feet in order to attain their purpose. While their purpose may be only to climb down by the rope, they can not of course stay longer at any high position on the rope. They can not do so for when they have used up their arm strength they will surely be thrown down let alone that they be able to stay on the rope and attend to the job on the rope. For this reason, it has been an urgent need for those working in the tall buildings or on a high altitude if, a kind of rope climbers could be provided which is not only operable by a single person but also enables the person to climb up and down at will and to stay at any position on the rope while freeing both hands to attend to the job with no worries for safety. However, till today, there has not been found an apparatus that can provide such a usage. Besides, when climbing up and down by a rope, because there is a direct rubbing of hand and foot against the rope and the skin is likely torn and bleeds, a person can only proceed with ropes of a soft texture such as a rope made of hemp, jute, flax, etc. which gets rotten and broken off easily and also the strength of which has been something for worry. On the contrary, although the steel cables and ropes are of high strength and ensure higher safety, there still has not had any means to deal with.
Although there are ladders for working at low altitude, these ladders are however beyond their capacity for working at higher altitudes. At the same time even though there are elevators, lifts, scaling ladders for use by those who work at higher altitudes, still these equipments are expensive and usually occupy large area on the ground, and also are not within everybody's reach for installation.
Presently, there are many high-rise buildings in towns and cities, such that demands for working at high altitude are also on the rise daily. In this respect, there is truly a need now for developing a simple and highly safe ascent apparatus, the development of which will require no much of the high technology and also which is operable in use by an average man just after a little practice. It is by this need that an ascent apparatus of the present invention has been developed.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a novel rope climber being simple in construction and highly safe, the rope climber further being capable of providing for operation by a single person and requiring no high technical skill nor help of a source of power to enable the person to climb up and down freely by a steel rope or pole suspending from a high altitude and to also stay for attending to the job at any position on the rope.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a rope climber not only for use for working on the job at high altitude but also as equipment in sports such as mountaineering, cliffclimbing and amusement and in the event of emergency further as life escape means in high-rise buildings.